It was the most epic of times, it was the worst of times. Indeed, despite our greatest aspirations to the contrary the blog has somewhat fallen into disrepair as real life continues to rear its ugly head. At least, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

The truth is, Guff, in his infinite optimism and caffeine driven confidence, ditched me and hopped the nearest plane to Japan. Life and work has been kind of rocking me recently, and without my faithful co-conspirator I’ve been in a bit of bind as to how to carry on the torch, as it were, here at Epic Win.

The good news is that a number of new posts should be forthcoming over the course of the next couple of weeks. The bad news is that it won’t be our usual tongue-in-cheek, trend-bucking anime analysis for the most part. Rather, Guff has been writing up tales of his various and sundry experiences across the pond in Hokkaido, where he currently resides (more details on all that to come!).

In addition, with the upcoming Anime Expo convention a mere stone’s throw away from me here in Los Angeles, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to drop by the convention for my usual routine of relentlessly snacking on deliciously unhealthy Japanese confectionaries, photographing cute cosplayers, and making fun of Zac Bertschy at every possible opportunity.

Anime Expo 2007 was a great time all around ^_^

And let’s not forget the excellent opportunity to see Sorairo Days performed live by Shokotan, a show I certainly have no intentions of missing out on. Considering the overwhelming clamor that the con usually entails, posts might not be quite in real time, but I hope to keep you all updated with lots of photos and tales of adventure. Oh yeah, and somewhere in the middle there I’ll be sure to squeeze in some of the posts Guff is writing up.

Given that the two of us are now on opposite sides of the ocean, I don’t know if we’ll be able to continue our tag-team blogging style. Nevertheless, we will aim to pick up where we left off and bring you as much irreverent and witty commentary as we can possibly muster. I still have lots of things I want to say about some of the new anime airing, so as soon as I can muster the energy I’ll be banging out a few treatises more in line with our traditional fare.

For those of you who still have the feed subscribed, thanks for your encouraging words and e-mails and for continuing to stick around. Hopefully we’ll be able to respond in kind and give you all something worth sticking around for!

~ 0rion

I enjoy a narrative when it doesn’t feel compelled to proclaim itself. I feel sort of molly coddled at best and annoyed at worst when a story lays out the plot like some kind of Lego instructional manual. Just let me put the pieces together on my own, all right? I can make the pirate ship without you holding my hand.

It is for this very reason that I’m particularly excited about Kurenai. Right from the get-go the characters are in motion and the wheels are turning. Other than the fact that main character, Kurenai, is a dispute mediator and works for Juusawa Benika, you don’t know much. You feel almost thrown into the world, yet at the same time the narrative remains cohesive and slowly fills in the details piece by piece. Read the rest of this entry »

Porororon poro roro roporon ron!

“This episode is full of kanji and makes me tired.”

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Cha chiri chiririn, docchudocchurin!

“Yes, I agree heartily, good sir.”

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Miri kiriri rururin mirurun mirakuru mikurunrun!

“It also contained many obscure puns that most English speaking viewers won’t understand at all!”

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Sumomomo momomo!

“Not to mention incoherent rambling from every character for the first 12 minutes of the episode!” Read the rest of this entry »

OK, time to nitpick. Having read the first of the Ookami to Koushinryou novels, as well as read a bit of the manga, it is now my contractual obligation to tell you how the anime sucks and is nothing like the original, which is of course a paragon of excellence, prosaic and beautiful in ways this adaptation can never be!

Just kidding, of course. The Spice and Wolf anime has thus far been excellent, and I continue to look forward to each new episode. That said, I feel it has several distinct shortcomings. Read the rest of this entry »

Aria banzai! Donuts banzai!

Like pie and ice cream, like Alicia and “Ara ara”, like Akari and embarrassing comments, the gentle strains of Makino Yui’s beautiful singing go together perfectly with the beginning of an Aria episode.

The whole concept of the “OP-that’s-not-an-OP” is wonderfully fitting for the series, as the song complements the gorgeous scenery of the opening shots, helping to soothe the soul and get you in the right mood to enjoy what’s to come. It’s almost like an insert song for every episode, in a sense. Read the rest of this entry »

How I’ve missed Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei! The winter anime season doesn’t look like it’s going to be very strong on comedy shows, and Hayate no Gotoku has been kind of going downhill recently, so I’m extremely pleased that I’ll once again have the ever despairing Itoshiki-sensei and his twisted harem to tickle my funnybone. Read the rest of this entry »

Oh my God, is that a woman in a Kaiji episode?! What has the world come to?? Up is down, left is right, J.C. Staff is KyoAni!!

Hmm, well at least I think that’s supposed to be a woman, anyway…I dunno, Guff? What’s your expert opinion?

While the skirt and sweater vest may seem indicative of the female gender on first glance, look carefully at the nose.

Stand by…now magnifying… Read the rest of this entry »

Finally finally finally FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY… after dicking around with filler arcs and side stories for what seemed like an eternity, they finally get around to the good part of the story. And thank goodness, because it is good indeed. I’ve been waiting to see this scene animated for a long, long time.

The last few episodes have been following the novels very closely, so it seems that they’ve decided to really get back on track. Man, it’s been a while since I watched an anime episode that made me giddy like this one did. Honestly, instead of wasting the first 7 episodes on filler stuff, they should have just jumped right back into the canon storyline and used the extra money on animating the fight scenes. Especially considering the speed at which they’re moving through the events in the novels; I mean, they basically covered almost half of one novel just in this episode. Read the rest of this entry »

Shigofumi is one of those series that has an intriguing and quirky setting that can either become amazingly brilliant or turn into absolute rubbish, depending on the execution of the story. Speaking of which, using the phrase “execution of the story” when talking about J.C. Staff and light novel adaptations conjures an entirely different mental image from what that phrase usually means (Zero no Tsukaima or Shakugan no Shana, anyone?), and will almost certainly bring bad luck to the production, so I’m going to refrain from saying that ever again.

Shigofumi (死後文) basically means a “letter from beyond death”, and refers to a letter which a recently deceased person writes to someone still living. These letters are delivered by Fumika (pictured above), along with her talking staff sidekick, Kanaka. The series seems to be more or less episodic, with the duo delivering a different letter to a different person each time. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite being a recent fan of the light novels this show is based on, I had a lot of reservations about the series going into it. After watching the first episode, however, I’ve been solidly convinced - this show is going to be epic. So sit back, cut yourself a slice of sunshine pie*, and I’ll tell you why.

* For those who haven’t seen the episode, I’ll explain that line in a bit.

First a quick story synopsis. The only thing I hate more than writing episode summaries is reading them, so I’ll keep this brief. Read the rest of this entry »